1So those who are believers in Christ Jesus can no longer be condemned.
2The standards of the Spirit, who gives life through Christ Jesus, have set you free from the standards of sin and death.
3It is impossible to do what God's standards demand because of the weakness our human nature has. But God sent his Son to have a human nature as sinners have and to pay for sin. That way God condemned sin in our corrupt nature.
4Therefore, we, who do not live by our corrupt nature but by our spiritual nature, are able to meet God's standards.
5Those who live by the corrupt nature have the corrupt nature's attitude. But those who live by the spiritual nature have the spiritual nature's attitude.
6The corrupt nature's attitude leads to death. But the spiritual nature's attitude leads to life and peace.
7This is so because the corrupt nature has a hostile attitude toward God. It refuses to place itself under the authority of God's standards because it can't.
8Those who are under the control of the corrupt nature can't please God.

9But if God's Spirit lives in you, you are under the control of your spiritual nature, not your corrupt nature. Whoever doesn't have the Spirit of Christ doesn't belong to him.
10However, if Christ lives in you, your bodies are dead because of sin, but your spirits are alive because you have God's approval.
11Does the Spirit of the one who brought Jesus back to life live in you? Then the one who brought Christ back to life will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you.

12So, brothers and sisters, we have no obligation to live the way our corrupt nature wants us to live.
13If you live by your corrupt nature, you are going to die. But if you use your spiritual nature to put to death the evil activities of the body, you will live.
14Certainly, all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's children.
15You haven't received the spirit of slaves that leads you into fear again. Instead, you have received the spirit of God's adopted children by which we call out, "Abba! Father!"
16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
17If we are his children, we are also God's heirs. If we share in Christ's suffering in order to share his glory, we are heirs together with him.

18I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us.
19All creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal who his children are.
20Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. The one who subjected it to frustration did so in the hope
21that it would also be set free from slavery to decay in order to share the glorious freedom that the children of God will have.
22We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time.
23However, not only creation groans. We, who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts, also groan inwardly. We groan as we eagerly wait for our adoption, the freeing of our bodies [from sin].
24We were saved with this hope in mind. If we hope for something we already see, it's not really hope. Who hopes for what can be seen?
25But if we hope for what we don't see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

26At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don't know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words.
27The one who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind. The Spirit intercedes for God's people the way God wants him to.

28We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God-those whom he has called according to his plan.
29This is true because he already knew his people and had already appointed them to have the same form as the image of his Son. Therefore, his Son is the firstborn among many children.
30He also called those whom he had already appointed. He approved of those whom he had called, and he gave glory to those whom he had approved of.

31What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32God didn't spare his own Son but handed him over [to death] for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him.
33Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them.
34Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in heaven. Christ also intercedes for us.

35What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love?

36As Scripture says: "We are being killed all day long because of you. We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered."

37The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties.
38I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can't be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces
39or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.

GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.